Members Update on the Stakeholder Group Meetings
EVENTS IN THE PARK-
MEMBERS UPDATE ON THE STAKEHOLDER GROUP MEETINGS
The Friends of Finsbury Park (FOFP) have participated in a number of ‘Stakeholder Group’ meetings with Haringey Council over the past few months to discuss their plans for the large-scale concerts scheduled to be held in Finsbury Park over the summer months in 2015.
The first meeting was held on 18th February 2015 and subsequent meetings were held on 25th February, 18th March, 24th March and the 10th June. All meetings were held at the Civic Centre.
The FOFP was represented, over the course of the meetings, by Phil Goodwin, Jeremy Llewellyn-Jones, Clive Carter, Konrad Borowski and Kevin Duffy. The meetings were chaired by Cllr Stuart McNamara, the Cabinet member for Parks. Haringey officials present included Simon Farrow, acting Head of Parks and Daliah Barratt, acting head of Licensing. Other attendees included representatives of Islington and Hackney Councils, the Finsbury Park Trust, The HarringayLadders Safety Partnership, the Green Lanes branch of the Harringay Traders Association and the Metropolitan Police. Local Councillors from Islington, Hackney and Haringey attended some meetings. ‘Live Nation’, the promoters of the ‘Wireless Festival’, had a number of representatives at all but the last meeting.
Our position throughout has been that these concerts are too large, too noisy, too damaging to the Park and unacceptably disruptive to schools and local communities.
Whilst Haringey Council, and particularly Councillor Stuart McNamara the Cabinet member for Parks, have recently demonstrated a considerably improved willingness to engage with us on this issue, the outcome from our participation in many long meetings has, to date, been disappointing.
Regrettably, therefore, we cannot report that, if measured by outcomes, our participation in this process has proven to be a MEANINGFUL engagement.
The representatives of the Friends at these meetings frequently felt that we were being invited to observe the invasion plans of the enemy without being given any power whatsoever to impact the outcome. That has been a dispiriting experience.
Haringey Council and ‘Live Nation’, the organisers of the Wireless Festival originally scheduled to be held in the Park over three days from 3-5th July and now an additional date of 28th June, are joint partners in a commercial endeavour which is clearly attractive to both of them. Unfortunately, the strong case we have made about the impact of the noise, disruption and sustained degradation to the fabric of the Park does not appear to have weighed sufficiently with them to achieve any meaningful changes in their plans to replicate the scale and disruption of last year’s events. We were hoping for at least an interim agreement for a smaller footprint of the Park to be used this year and for a reduction in numbers from the 45,000 per day planned. Unfortunately, no such concessions have been made.
At the end of March, Councillor McNamara signed off the Land Use Agreement between Haringey Council and Live Nation. Apart from inserting an additional concert day on the 28th June, which had not been included in the original Land Use application, the concert plans were, essentially, unchanged.
WHERE NOW?
Further meetings of Haringey Council’s ‘Stakeholder Group’ are scheduled to take place over the next two months. We will need to consider whether continuing to attend these meetings is the best use of our limited resources. We have made a compelling case in our efforts to persuade Haringey Council to change its’ events policy but they have chosen to ignore it.
Our representations have been fully endorsed at a public meeting held at the Finsbury Park Mosque on 21st January and at the FOFP General Meeting held on 2nd March, which was attended by Cllr McNamara.
Haringey Council and their commercial partners ‘Live Nation’ have been left in no doubt about the overwhelming strength of local residents’ opposition to these events.
Given our lack of progress to date, we have to look at alternative forms of action. These will need to focus on the potential for legal challenges and on challenges to process such as our petition demanding a re-run of the very flawed events consultation and a further petition requesting Haringey Council to end these large scale commercial events. A priority will be to seek an early review of the indefinite licences granted to event promoters Live Nation and SJM.
We will also need to step up our media campaign to ensure that the voice of the Friends of Finsbury Park and of local residents is heard well beyond the confines of Haringey Council.
Kevin Duffy
Chair
The Friends of Finsbury Park
June 2015
Please see the photos below showing some of the damage caused by the 2014 events.
